The Soul-Crushing Scorched-Earth Battle for Gay Marriage

How much is victory worth? And after you win, if you win, what do you have to show for it?

As these principles go with warfare, so they go with propaganda. The Greek word polemos, “war,” led not to the English word “war,” but rather to the English word “polemics.”

The gay movement is not a random assortment of motley rebels. It is highly organized, with major nerve centers in places like the Human Rights Coalition. The movement has its prominent generals, such as Dan Savage and Wayne Besen.

In other words, this is a movement equipped to pick its battles. In 1999, history was made because Vermont’s high court legalized same-sex civil unions. The battle plan then could have been to focus on civil unions, forging a new model of romantic commitment in a nation where the old notion of “marriage” had long suffered from stasis.

The war could have been won and over by now. In polls that break down three choices for respondents—(1) no recognition of same-sex couples, (2) civil unions, or (3) marriage—civil unions tend to get the highest support. By using civil unions as the framework, gays and lesbians could have redefined the concept of gay family to encompass new forms of cooperative foster care, for instance, rather than trying to erase the role of biological fatherhood and motherhood.

Most importantly, had civil unions been the focus, there would have been nowhere near as much resistance. One thing that I learned while being raised by a lesbian mother and her female partner (more on that in a moment) is simple but important: not everyone is going to like you. You can’t change some people’s minds. Screw them and move on.

The war for marriage was destined to be bloodier and costlier. I might hazard a guess that gay spokespeople like Dan Savage preferred it to be bloody and costly, since in a strange Lord of the Flies psychology, they would be able to command the most resources by making gay people feel constantly embattled, hated, and in need of take-no-prisoners leadership of the kind Savage promised.

In any case, the LGBT movement started at a solution—gay marriage equality—and then reasoned backwards, searching for arguments that would justify it. It is always ill-advised to put forward an answer and then go fishing for questions. The LGBT movement was forced into that position since it had to fight for gay marriage equality in two places where argumentation carries the day—first, the court system, and second, the two-party electoral process. So gay marriage equality became a platform, a goal, a panacea, a nearly utopian mantra—for which there was no immediate or compelling emergency.

Let us not forget that the LGBT community abounds in emergencies. Here is a snapshot of gay male life in 2010, as I wrote for an article that I ended up not publishing:

Meanwhile, gay men were not necessarily becoming happier simply because taboos crumbled and it was easier for them to have sex. Eating disorders, suicide, depression, and addiction were higher among gay and bisexual men than among other groups. In 2010, a report by the Center for Disease Control revealed that men who had sex with men were still contracting HIV at 44 times the rate of other men—despite decades of activism by a muscular and highly visible gay movement.

Are any of these real emergencies going to be solved by legalizing gay marriage? Wait—before you take too long to deliberate about it, I’ll cut to the answer: no.

On the magical day, some time in 2015 or so, when gay marriage is legalized throughout the United States (it will happen, believe me), none of those problems will be significantly alleviated by the “right” to marry. In fact, many of them may worsen, precisely because so much energy and money was diverted to fighting for gay marriage over civil unions, when a lot of the community’s most vulnerable members do not end up in couples.

The gay couples who got hospital visitation rights under civil unions will have the same hospital visitation rights under marriage. The word “marriage” will be like the seventy pounds I lost in 2007. After being fat for years, I thought I’d be happy if only I were skinny. As it turned out, I had all the same problems, only now I was hungry.

That’s how those wedding photos and marriage certificates will feel for gay couples. After a few weeks, like the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the victory will be easily forgotten, and the people who weren’t helped by the “right” to marry nonexistent partners or the “right” to be stuck in the military will be quickly neglected.

Which brings me to me. To paraphrase Thoreau, I am sorry to speak so much on the topic of me, but it’s the topic I know the most about.

Since I was a toddler, I have been stuck with all sorts of Gay Questions. You see, I have no memories of my biological father being around my house. My earliest memories are of my mother and her best friend, who I eventually discovered was her female romantic partner. They raised me together through all of my childhood and adolescence. My mother died when I was nineteen. It may please today’s gay activists to know that then, in 1990, my mother’s partner was able to be by my mother’s bedside.

Yet there has never been peace between me and the gay community. In the 1970s and 1980s, I was raised by two women, both of whom I credit for doing a great job in a rather intolerant era. But it was hard on me, and I have never been hesitant to share my experience truthfully. I suffered from not having contact with my father and lacking a male role model. Period.

One effect of the difficulties was that I dropped out of college and sought parenting from troublesome people.

In the 1990s, I watched many gay men who had become surrogate father and surrogate mother figures to me die. One by one, repeating the tragedy of my mother, they disappeared. They were all alone except, in many cases, for me. The gay community treated them with shame even as they were the only sense of family I thought I’d have left.

In my late twenties, I finally lost my virginity to the woman who would bear me a child and become my wife. So bingo, I was suddenly “bisexual.” (My wife knows everything, and I do not plan on hiding my past.) I realized soon enough that bisexuals aren’t very popular among the gays. “You’re lying,” “you’re a wacko ex-gay,” and “those pictures are going to destroy you!” were all subtle ways of gay friends telling me they weren’t going to invite me to parties anymore.

There’s more, but I’ll stop with the autobiography there. The point is this: if gay marriage is a solution without a problem, I am the gay community’s problem without a solution. I don’t fit any of their narratives. Through no fault of my own, I explode every one of their myths, from the narrative of idyllic same-sex couple parenting to the supposed fabulousness of post-Stonewall New York to the insistence that gay people are born a certain way and sexual orientation can never change.

I feel like walking around with a sign on my chest saying, “Dear Gays, Please Forgive Me For Existing.” Their instinct would be to do what they usually do, which is ignore me. Anyway, I am conservative. That makes me Satan.

So then, we get to August 6, the day the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima in 1945, and the day, in 2012, that I published an essay entitled “Growing Up with Two Moms.”

It was a simple 2,000-word essay defending a study by Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus.

Mark Regnerus’s study found that children of gay or bisexual parents had greater difficulties than children of intact biological families with a mother and father. The gay blogosphere had gone mad, accusing Regnerus of being an anti-gay pig and distorting sociological data. After 59 studies, all forming a scholarly “consensus” that same-sex couples posed no disadvantages for children, Regnerus gave up consensus for the truth.

My defense expressed thoughts that undermined the legal penumbras involved in arguing for gay marriage under the 14th Amendment. Who cares? It was hard to be a kid growing up with gay parents—that’s all I know. I’m not a lawyer.

Since my article came out, I have been through far worse than I ever thought would happen. My job is at risk, and worst of all, my coworkers received an e-mail from a gay rights organization with the title “COMPLAINT AGAINST CSUN’S ROBERT LOPEZ: GAY BASHER.” Soon I got e-mails from administrators. People really investigate claims like this.

Gay basher?

What the heck has this movement come to?

For God’s sake, I am a bisexual raised by a lesbian couple, who helped countless people dying of AIDS. I’ve spent my life cleaning up the messes left by gay politics. I wrote an honest essay. That’s bashing?

The gay marriage movement has finally crossed the line into insanity. They must burn their own villages to save them from their phantasmal bullies. All the real things that gays could do to improve their real problems are right before their eyes: be humane to one another, forgive others, care for their most needy, and most of all, pick their battles. Support pro-life politicians and adopt foster kids saved from abortion. Vote for Republicans who believe in school vouchers, get bullied gays into safer schools… But they choose not to. They have dedicated themselves to a scorched-earth campaign for gay marriage. And when that war is won, they will have conquered a wasteland. I wonder what Eliot would have to say.

This essay first appeared August 11, 2012 in AmericanThinker.com and is reprinted with permission of the author.

Robert Oscar Lopez is author of the Colorful Conservative: American Conversations with the Ancients from Wheatley to Whitman (University Press of America, 2011). Lopez is also the author of three fictional works about gay life. He is the editor of English Manif.

Very simply, the Catholic Church needs to separate Herself from any recognition of all marriages performed by the State and all protestant ecclesial communities. We obviously have a radically and essentially different conception of what marriage is. We should stop trying to force compatibility between what is obviously incompatible. On this note, we should return to calling marriage what we have hisorically called it: Holy Matrimony. What the State and these protestant groups are doing is neither holy nor is it matrimony. Case closed.

Carl Albert

right-on, Deacon! The libertarian in me recognizes the value in the state’s contractual protection of two peacefully-joined people. But the Catholic in me understands that what my wife and I share in matrimony is infinitely greater than a civil union.

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

What you have suggested might be a good idea, Deacon, except that there’s no verb for “Holy Matrimony,” unless you want to coin one. How would a newly married couple say, “We got married today!” Nevertheless, I like your separationist approach, and good luck trying to implement it.

TheodoreSeeber

All sin, is suicide. Physically and spiritually. I am a glutton, and I see homosexuality as having the same perverse causes as my overeating- satisfying perversity is a very comfortable way to die indeed.

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

Well, Theodore, I think you might want to speak for yourself. My gay son is not perverse and he is not dying.

TheodoreSeeber

Then, like most supporters of homosexuality, you know nothing about evolution, biology, procreation, or disease propagation. Or, for that matter, the historical definition of the word PERVERSE. I will not discuss this issue with a closed minded heterophobic bigot like you.

Ray Olson

Dear Mr. Lopez–Thank you. There has been a flurry of pieces concerned with gay marriage on this site of late. Yours is by far the most moving and the one most worth pondering. I share your beliefs that gay marriage will be “legalized throughout the United States” and that many, many problems that gays experience singly and in couples will remain. Presumably, the civil rights usually cited as reasons for gay marriage will be secured, however, and gays’ incorporation into the greater social fabric will be facilitated. Presumably, too, the marriages of Catholics will not be declared invalid, the natural law theories about marriage will not evaporate, and prevailing definitions of the word marriage will not be expunged from all writing and speech. I think the present controversy will eventually be looked upon as a tempest in a teapot. The controversialists will blink, shake their heads, and wonder why they bothered.

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

Ray, I agree, and I think we are already beginning to see signs that the “tempest in a teapot” is losing its energy. Catholics will realize that they are not threatened by same-sex marriage, and that their families and beliefs are secure. All will be well.

tedseeber

Your family isn’t secure. Your own son is engaging in behavior that is objectively suicidal, given the HIV rate among homosexual men and given the inability to procreate.

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

TedSeeber, my son is fine, he is loved, and he is happy. He is not engaging in any behavior that is “objectively suicidal.” This is just something that you imagine.

Bob

It was interesting watching the gay activists who were arrested several months ago in the Speaker of the House’s office by taking their clothes off to protest the possible funding cuts in HIV/AIDS research. As others on this site have mentioned, 30 years after the first AIDS cases were detected, AIDS is still exploding and at an epidemic pace in the gay male community. A spokesperson for the protesting gay group interviewed by CNN demanded greater funding for AIDS research and that the cuts were a civil rights issue and a result of Republican “bigotry and hate.”

Really? The only way AIDS is spread through the gay community and why there is still such a high level of disease 30 years after finding out why is through promiscuity and the practice of sodomy. Call these two factors the 800 pound gorilla in the room being practically ignored still to this day by the gay community. Is it really anyone else’s fault outside of the gay community for such high levels of HIV/AIDS ? watching the CNN report, the gay representative was basically arrogantly saying that we refuse to change our gay sexual lifestyle and it is up to you MR. Taxpayer to find me a cure or you’re a bigot.

Like Mr. Lopez, I too have been by the bedside of many dieing AIDS patients over the last 16 years (I am a Lay Volunteer for one of Blessed Mother Teresa’s homes for poor people with AIDS.) these AIDS patients have no were else to go and are taken in by the Missionary of Charity sisters to be loved, cared for, and given a beautiful death And not once have I ever seen in 16 years a LGBT group come by to help or volunteer, offer donations of food, medical supply or cash. Protestant groups come by to help. Many Indian Hindu’s help. Muslim groups have lent support. But never one gay group.

A volunteer in one of our homes New York relayed a story about last years gay pride parade. As the Gay pride group paraded by Mother Teresa’s home, they threw condoms and verbal insults at the front door of the home. The irony is that as they hurled condoms at the front doors, behind those doors were gay men dieing of AIDS, being cared for by the only ones who truly cared for them. The MC sisters.

http://twitter.com/pdmcguirelaw Paul McGuire

And yet in Africa where there are high rates of AIDS, it is just as high among straight individuals. Anyone who is having sex with multiple partners without protection is likely to get some sort of disease whether gay or straight. There are certain things you are more likely to get as a man having sex with men and others that are more commonly gotten as a man having sex with women. In both cases, promiscuity is what makes it risky. Two gay men in a monogamous relationship are not any more likely than a straight couple in a monogamous relationship to get STDs. To suggest that AIDS is just a disease that afflicts gay men is incorrect though there are much higher rates in that population. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm

J G

It isn’t about marriage. It is about forcing everyone to accept homosexuality as normal. That way they can convince themselves that it is normal. Granted it won’t work since you cannot deny natural law. But they are going to try and eliminate anyone who gets in the way.

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

JG, no one is interested in “eliminating” you, and no one can “force” you to change your mind about anything. No need to worry.

TheodoreSeeber

Then why are you trying, you heterophobic bigot?

Ray Olson

Mr Seeber–You are very much out of line, not even remotely Christian. SHAME on you!

tedseeber

It is Christian to ignore bigotry and hatred as displayed by Timothy Brock?

I did not know that the definition of Christianity was to ignore sin and serve the devil. Can you explain that?

John200

By the way, Ted, as you engage with these higher echelon creatures and they instruct you concerning their idea of etiquette, the expression “heterophobic bigot” is perfectly in line.

Maybe it has a sharper edge than intended, but if not, then it is perfectly within the bounds of civil, and descriptive, discourse. I shall adopt it myself as needed.

TheodoreSeeber

Thank you John. You begin to restore my faith in the fight.

John200

The fight is good and worthy of our best efforts. Never doubt it.

BTW, I seem to remember your name from some combox or other (maybe this one? I’m really not sure… ). If not, it’s nice to meet you on CrisisMag.

Bob

Reading your post Ray all I could think of is the scriptural passage where Christ takes a staff to the craniums of the money changers who have turned the Temple in to a house of greed and evil. Mr. Seeber is not out of line or not Christian. Some times the truth needs to be applied bluntly, with a heavy stick. People who love Christ and His Church hate sin and the bottom line is sodomy and the gay lifestyle is immoral and against God’s will. Period. The gay culture does have an agenda, and it is to legitimize and gain approval for their sinful lifestyle. When well meaning and loving Catholics defend marriage as only between a man and a women through the natural law or scripture, the gay agenda folks have no answer and attack and try to neuter them by calling them “homophobes”, “insensitive”, “gay bashers”, that they are being discriminated against, etc. In our culture where truth takes a backseat to political correctness, this becomes an effective strategy to somehow marginalized the views of the devout Catholic. make no mistake about it however: sodomy is disordered against nature and against Christ’s will.

As Catholics, we are to love the sinner and hate the sin, and to sometimes call out sin bluntly even if someone’s feelings get hurt.

But martyrdom is never clean or bloodless. Devout Catholics guided by the Holy Spirit stand tall for Christ’s truths. And Catholics are being called to martyrdom over this issue, whether it is red or white. It’s a battle where there is no middle ground. Christ said he’d rather us be hot or cold, but if we are lukewarm, He will vomit us out.

Ray Olson

Dear Bob–Seeber is virtually screaming with rage,hurling epithets (e.g., “heterophobic bigot”) that are entirely presumptuous if not groundless (remember, Mr. Brock has been talking about his son) and meant only to silence and squelch. I can not call that Christian. It is a wonder to me that he and other verbal abusers who contribute to the streams concerned with same-sex marriage ever hope to convince anyone, much less convert them to Catholicism. If I didn’t know plenty of other Catholics who share these rage-aholics’ views of SSM but defend and promulgate them with decency and grace–let alone the Catholics who don’t regard SSM as a real threat to anything–I would dismiss Catholicism as a religion of mannerless curs. And no, it counts for nothing that some SSM advocates are good at screaming abuse, too. Didn’t the mothers of Seeber et al. teach them that responding in kind has no excuse? When do they turn the other cheek? Are they doing unto others what they would have those others do unto them? Is their in-your-face style any way to treat a fellow child of God? Finally, is not one of them capable of answering a question directly, with “yes”, “no”, or a line of reasoning?

Bob

Agreed, there has to be a level of civility. But soberly and without blinking, Catholics need to stand tall and firm on the teaching on sodomy and how gay marriage is an affront to God. And like the African martyrs who firmly said no to their king’s sexual advances we must be prepared for martyrdom, to show “witness” to the truth that has been given us. This is why spiritual warfare is called “warfare” and why scripture tells us to put on the armor of Christ. Catholics are being attacked in our country for our beliefs. And like John the Baptist’s calling out Herrod’s adultery (and Herrod knew that John was right and speaking to him the Truth) from the pit of his prison, It is an act of Christian love and charity to firmly but civilly tell someone living a gay lifestyle their acts of sodomy are grave and sinful and their eternal destiny is in jeopardy.

Ray Olson

Dear Bob–Thank you, civility is precisely what is called for. Stand up for the teaching, to be sure, but don’t revile and insult those you may convince or, barring that, befriend. It’s their sin, not their souls, that offend you–right? And count on me to stand up for treating one another with as much love and as little rancor as we possibly can–and, indeed, more than we can.

TheodoreSeeber

It is more than their sin that offends. I truly was in a rage that day- you called that right. But you can’t tell me that it wasn’t a provoked rage- and that I wasn’t giving back *exactly* what I had been given.

The heterophobes are attacking. Make no mistake. Those who hate heterosexual marriage, hate pregnancy, and hate children will NOT stop at just gay marriage- they will not stop until every last “breeder” is in the concentration camps.
I see no hope for converting or befriending such people at all.

Pelagian

I am afraid this is true. Sure, we all know some nice inverts. But at the end of the day … their whole “orientation” is vengeance.

TheodoreSeeber

Yes, my mother taught me that rolling over and playing dead is worthless, it just gets you beat up.

musicacre

No, but they can by forcing “gay education” into the schools. They don’tchange kids’ minds; they shape them.

mally el

Yes, bigots like that Sage guy are trying to do just that.

John200

Are you referring to Dan Savage, mentioned in the article? He is a first class bigot, if that’s who you meant.

I love your writing and your honesty, btw, thank you for sharing. Just yesterday as I drove my kids to violin class we were stopped at a red light and watched two obviously female young ladies holding hands walk by – this is the difference between the parenting challenges that our generation faces, the pda that is unabashedly shown on the streets, in Walmart, at the library… It is a tiny fraction of the population but these random scenes make a big impact on a child, who responds instinctively with questions about why in the world would they…. and what’s a parent to say, and when, and how. I know that every generation and culture has polluted the environments of its children, and it is so terribly sad that it must be flaunted. Young adults today are completely ill-equipped to reason against “but they love each other.” Period. They can’t do it. God help us.

Bono95

Are you sure the girls were lesbians? i.e. was there anything about them beyond their holding hands that clearly betrayed them? People the same gender who are simply legitimate close friends and not lovers can and do hold hands too.

mally el

Yes, hopefully it is that they are just legitimate close friends.

Wilson

How did you know that they were ladies?

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.brock.184 Timothy Brock

Veronica, I really wouldn’t worry too much about your children seeing two females holding hands. It needn’t be a problem for them unless you yourself appear to be disturbed by it. If you model disgust or judgment for them, then they may grow up with these feelings. My own parents modeled certain anti-Semitic attitudes for me, and I had to overcome those attitudes in myself when I became a young man. And then I just blamed them for their lack of kindness. So please don’t make the same mistake that they did. In some cultures, it is completely acceptable for men to hold hands with men and women with women. There is nothing inherently disgusting about such a sight. It is a sign of affection, and affection should never be thought of as dirty or disgusting.

tedseeber

So it is Kindness to ignore self-destructive sin?

http://twitter.com/pdmcguirelaw Paul McGuire

I doubt you would be offended by a straight couple walking down the street holding hands. Nothing is inherently offensive by two people walking down the street holding hands, even if it happens to be two girls or two guys. You could always explain to your kids that some girls fall in love with girls and some boys fall in love with boys. By the time you bring up the subject I suspect they will have figured out that it is no big deal and just another reality of life.

Deacon Ed Peitler

Veronica, Please do not be misled by some of the nonsense you read here. Your responsibility toward your children includes their moral education. If you perceive something that is unnatural and aberrant, you must identify it as such to your children in age appropriate ways. Behavior that is objectionable morally has to be identified as such. You do your children no service and put your own soul in jeopardy by not instructing your children according to Church teaching. Do not become prey to the PC madness. Do not leave it to your children to ‘find out for themselves when they get older.’ You will be consigning them to teachers who WILL instrcut them according to the immoral code of secualr society. It will then be too late. Look for teachable moments: all you do is have to put on Glee for one episode and you will have plenty of opportunities for the moral education of your children.

Tommy

I wonder if you would be bisexual if you were not raised by lesbians. There in lies the real problem with allowing children be raised by gays. I wonder why you choose to not be bisexual? Also if I might say, after they are able to marry they will go after every person that won’t except this as normal and will go around getting people arrested for hate speech for there beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman.

You said it yourself they are putting you job in jeopardy just because you don’t agree. They want to force, if they can, , anybody who doesn’t agree, into silence or destroy them. Especially the Catholic Church? They are like a militant army and they will never stop until they destroy anyone who will not agree.

Phil

The Queer community is actually rather amorphous. Many of the issues described by mr. Lopez are actively discussed within it, such as biphobia. A large proportion of Queers don’t even support gay marriage itself because they think that it’s too “normative” and marginalizes other relationship patterns such as polyamory. Many people think that th ssm is a distraction from other more important issues like eating disorders or suicide. The consensus within Queer circles now is that the struggle for gay rights has mostly been won, and the only real battles left are to improve the condition and visibility of trans* folk.
Listen to some queers actually and its as if “Upper Middle Class White cis gay men” have been absorbed into the mainstream.

You really do have differentiate the sexuality from the person, and generally the kinds of gays who pursue serious long term relationships are not the kinds of who have major emotional problems.

Ray Olson

Dear Phil–I believe you’re right on every point you make. You also confirm that lumping all queer/homosexual/gay people together is a grave error. Thank you.

Pelagian

The gay rights activists are putting people “off their dinner” with all this gay talk. How long can straight people tolerate that, really and truly? Hopefully all this pro-gay militancy will have a backlash.

GrahamCombs

I lived in NY during the 80s and 90s — everyone knew someone who died of AIDS. And the heterosexual AIDS epidemic never materialized. This history cannot be talked about. Read the obituaries — no one dies of AIDS anymore. I continue to wonder why the popular culture attacked marriage in story and song for fifty years and then suddenly decided that “marriage equality” was an absolute necessity despite Joni Mitchell’s lyrics that “we don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall…” The typical 20th century civil rights movement of any stripe is built on lies and more lies. And they are all essentially middle and upper-middle class in nature. No wonder the president is so pitiless toward the unemployed. They have nothing to recommend themselves as a constituency. The ugly politics of civil rights and the president who supports and practices them represent the ugliest administration in American history since the Jefferson Davis presidency. Abortion and gay marriage, like slavery, require defending the indefensible.

Bono95

Thank you, Mr. Lopez. This is the most interesting and insightful text I’ve ever read on this touchy subject. Great job!

NDaniels

Dear Robert, I will keep you in my thoughts and Prayers.

The “gay” movement may appear to have its prominent generals, but this does not change the fact that it is composed of many who are wounded.

We are, and have always been, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers. What God Desires, from The Beginning, is that every son grows up as a Good son, and if he is a brother, a Good brother, and if he becomes a husband, a Good husband, and if he becomes a father, a Good father, and every daughter, grows up as a Good daughter, and if she is a sister, a Good sister, and if she becomes a wife, a Good wife, and if she becomes a mother, a Good mother.

As the mother of a daughter who developed a same-sex sexual attraction as the result of the perfect storm that included a date-rape when she was in college, I know my daughter is suffering with an emotional development problem. I Love my daughter, as I Love all my children, and it is because I Love her that I desire that she, like all my children, is treated with Dignity and Respect in private as well as in public.

x

NDaniels

No State or person should be condoning any act, including any sexual act, that does not respect the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the human person.

Marriage, by its inherent nature, is restrictive to begin with, because not every couple can exist in relationship as husband and wife. The State should only be condoning that which is Good for the husband, that which is Good for the wife, and that which is Good for the new family that is created when a man and woman are joined together as husband and wife. The State should only be condoning that which is Good for human flourishing, that which is Life affirming and Life sustaining, for the sake of the prosperity and the posterity of this Nation, and the World.

All of us have disordered inclinations, some more difficult to overcome than others, but through God’s Life saving Gift of Grace and Mercy, we all have the ability to become transformed, as we learn to develop healthy and Holy relationships that are grounded in authentic Love.